Field of Dreams: Collector's Edition (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Featurette-The Field Of Dreams Scrapbook (88:50) Audio Commentary-Phil Alden Robinson (Director) & John Lindley (DoP) Production Notes Biographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer-1.85:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 (2:21)
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	101:11
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (87:44)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Phil Alden Robinson
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Kevin Costner Amy Madigan James Earl Jones Ray Liotta Burt Lancaster
Case	?
RPI	$36.95	Music	James Horner

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Danish Finnish Swedish Norwegian Hebrew Portuguese Dutch Czech Polish Turkish Hungarian Bulgarian	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    One of the first "problems" with the film is of course exactly what it is all about, and that is part of the enduring nature of the film, as it really is open to all sorts of depths of interpretations. Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) is part of the generation of the 1960s that saw so many changes and were part of so many changes, as they rebelled against many of the accepted norms of society. Ray ended up being a corn farmer in Iowa on a small farm with his wife Annie (Amy Madigan) and his little daughter Karin (Gaby Hoffman). Wandering through his corn crop one day, Ray hears a mysterious voice that proclaims "if you build it, he will come". This enigmatic voice and its message eventually drives Ray to do as it begs - build the best-looking baseball field on a farm in Iowa. But the building of the field seemed to have no purpose other than to drive Ray and Amy broke...until one day, there suddenly appeared a spirit from the past in the form of one of the truly great baseball players of all time - "Shoeless Joe" Jackson (Ray Liotta). Now for those who don't know baseball, Shoeless Joe was a member of the infamous Black Sox - the Chicago White Sox team of 1919 that threw the World Series. Shoeless Joe and seven others were banned for life for their troubles, even though no one ever really proved that they actually did throw anything, and you would have a hard time convincing any reasonable baseball fan that Shoeless Joe participated anyway. These points are all brought out in the film.

    And so it looks like we have the point for Ray to build the field - except he receives another, even more enigmatic message form the voice after getting used to having the spirits from the 1919 Black Sox playing in his backyard. "Ease his pain" is the message - considerably more enigmatic than "if you build, he will come". And from that really enigmatic message, Ray deduces that he has to go to Boston to meet a famous writer from the 1960s, Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), and take him to a baseball game at Fenway Park. This highly unlikely decision actually makes plenty of sense in this film! But of course, this is not the entire point to the enigmatic message and after hearing another message and seeing a message on the big screen at Fenway, Ray and Terence head of in search of one Doctor Archibald "Moonlight" Graham (Burt Lancaster), whose major league baseball career amounted to one inning, at no at-bats. So we are slowly putting together a collection of dead major league baseball players, but for what purpose? Ah, for that you have to watch the film.

    Despite the fact that this is obviously a baseball film, you don't need to be a baseball fan to grasp the film at all. Indeed, even though it is a baseball film, a lot of what is going on is actually explained by the film. It is only your interpretation of the film that is not revealed in the film. Personally, I see this is a film that at its core is about the fundamental essence of baseball in the American way of life and that it is a metaphor for taking your dream and making of it what you want. It certainly helps my love of the film that I am a huge baseball fan. Whilst I have been fortunate to see only a couple of real live Major League Baseball games, they were such an experience that I would love nothing more than to have the opportunity to hang out on the first base line for an entire season of baseball. It might be a simple game - you throw the ball, you hit the ball and you catch the ball - but that simplicity is filled with such a perplexing array of possible outcomes that the result is rarely a dull game. That is part of what the film also conveys - the magic of the game, the history of the game.

    This sort of film requires genuine passion from all concerned and that is precisely what you get here - and that too is part of the reason that the film is such an enduring one. Kevin Costner is excellent as Ray Kinsella, and he brings to the film an urbanity that makes the whole role seem so real. Apart from the dubious agricultural techniques employed at times, he really convinces you that he is a corn farmer from Iowa doing nothing in the slightest bit strange. He is effectively matched by Amy Madigan, a sadly underrated talent that we rarely see in film. She brings a certain strength to the role of the farmer's wife that actually reminds me of the farmers' wives I knew when I worked on farms as a kid. Still, both almost succumb to the dreaded "don't play opposite the kid" syndrome. The cute kid this time is Gaby Hoffman who has an infectious smile (and style) that is hard to ignore here. But the best bits are saved for two greats of film: James Earl Jones and Burt Lancaster. Whilst everyone knows the unique and instantly recognizable voice of Jimmy Jones, it is not that often we get a chance to see his acting on DVD. He makes Terence Mann, for he is Terence Mann - simple as that. This was, I believe, the last film that Burt Lancaster made before his death, and whilst the role was not a huge one, it was a pivotal one and the legend handled it with typical aplomb.

    Based upon the book Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, Phil Alden Robinson penned an excellent screenplay that he also brought to the screen very well, with the help of a great cast and crew. There really is little to quibble about here as far as the cinematography is concerned and the whole film blends into an enduring effort that started off slow but built to a very sizeable box office world-wide.

    I guess that Field Of Dreams is ultimately a film that you love or hate, with nothing much in the way of middle ground. Whilst I have heard plenty of the pretentious rubbish type of knock-downs, I simply put that down to people not understanding the film. To me, this is the essence of baseball and beyond that, the essence of the relationship between father and son and a simple game. The fact that the farm in Iowa where the film was made became something of a tourist mecca would indicate that this hit a lot of heart strings around the world. A wonderful film that I have been eagerly awaiting on Region 4 DVD.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    There are some over-riding impressions that you keep coming back to whilst watching the film. This is not an especially sharp transfer and there is a consistent feeling of a slightly soft image throughout the transfer. Aiding and abetting the lack of brilliance in the transfer department is a slightly dull transfer, lacking in vibrancy although detail is quite good. Shadow detail is the main problem here, as the overall transfer (especially early on) has a decidedly dark tone to it, with the result that shadow detail is very average indeed. At times it gets to be pretty bad and a good example is around 18:40. Clarity is generally pretty good, although there is just the wrong sort of degree of grain and shimmer in the transfer to make this a better-looking transfer than it is. There did not appear to be any serious low level noise problems in the transfer.

    The whole transfer has a general tendency to a dull look in the colours, and this is perhaps the one true disappointment with both this version and the Region 1 DVD. The lack of vibrancy and brightness in the colours really makes this a relative drag to watch at times. With the general tendency to undersaturation, there is naturally no problem at all with oversaturation here. Colour bleed is also not an issue. But overall, this is sadly lacking in genuine colour and the film is the poorer for it. Let me make it clear though that this may be a source problem as the Region 1 release does not display any significant improvement in this regard either.

    MPEG artefacts in the transfer seemed to be confined to some loss of resolution in pan shots, which is partly attributable to the source material. Aside from the fact that the transfer in general is quite shimmery, such that there is never any stable, solid image to the baseball field itself for instance, there is a general tendency towards aliasing throughout the transfer. This is usually highlighted in the usual culprits like car trim, furniture and doors and windows. The opening credits seemed to suffer a little from wobble and there does appear to be some use of edge enhancement in the transfer too, such as at 15:35, that does not exactly help the image either. There are plenty in the way of film artefacts present throughout the transfer and this is not a really clean transfer at all. Once or twice they got to be really intrusive, such as at 38:37. Overall, the transfer smacks of one that is in need of some restoration work.

    This is an RSDL formatted DVD with the layer change coming mid-scene at 87:44. It is quite a decent layer change and even though it comes mid-scene it is not that noticeable and is barely disruptive to the flow of the film.

    The English subtitles on offer here are quite decent, about 80% accurate I would say. Unfortunately, they are accompanied by what I call "subtitle flash" - every time they change, there seems to be a white flash that ultimately I found incredibly distracting and annoying. The subtitles are unfortunately a little blurry and this also does not aid the reading thereof.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue comes through clearly and easy to understand in the transfer. There did not seem to be any audio sync problems.

    The music score comes from one of my personal dislikes, the over-rated and decidedly clichéd James Horner. The music does enough to support the film, but I would hardly consider it a classic. Others may well disagree on the effectiveness of the score here, but I would love to have heard what some of the true greats would have produced for the film.

    Aside from the fact that we did not get a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack (the voice would have sounded terrific in a good 5.1 mix), there is absolutely nothing wrong with the sound at all. Obviously lacking the finer nuances of the bass channel and the rear channels, sadly missed at times too, the sound has enough presence across the front soundstage to give it a decent open sound.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Featurette - The Field Of Dreams Scrapbook (88:50)

Audio Commentary - Phil Alden Robinson (Director) and John Lindley (Director of Photography)

Production Notes

Biographies - Cast and Crew

Theatrical Trailer (2:21)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall